Vanuatu 7 – 0 American Samoa

The game began in even fashion with both sides seeing plenty of the ball but Vanuatu soon began to exert their dominance and were ahead on the scoreboard just after the quarter hour mark.A deep cross from Didier Kalip found its way to a dangerous area at the far post and caused panic among goalkeeper Rhine Samuelu and his defenders. Samuelu, who is also skipper of the side, failed to gather the ball under pressure and it dropped at the feet of striker Jean Kaltak for him to toe over the line. Falling behind early on is not how coach Rupeni Luvu would have wanted his young charges to begin their campaign and it looked like they would be in for a long day when Vanuatu made it two just ten minutes later.The scorer this time was midfielder Eddison Stephen, who pounced on a partially-cleared corner and lashed an unstoppable shot past Samuelu in the 26th minute.As fine a strike as that was, it was not to be the best goal of the half. That arrived five minutes before the break when Pascal Chabot was put into space on the left hand side of the box and arrowed a sweetly-struck left foot piledriver across Samuelu and into the top corner of his left-hand upright.That made the score 3-0 at half-time and the chances of a comeback from American Samoa, who had defended resolutely but produced little as an attacking force, appeared slim.They became even slimmer in the 62nd minute when the slick Vanuatuans added a fourth goal to their tally. Again the name of Kaltak was on the scoresheet but this time it was defender Brian, the cousin of striker Jean.A set piece was American Samoa’s undoing on this occasion as they allowed Kaltak to find space in the box from a corner by substitute Simo Joseph and direct a firm header past Samuelu.The head of a Vanuatu player did the damage again in the 68th minute when Didier Kalip got to a looping cross just before the advancing Samuelu and nodded home.By this stage, American Samoa would have been willing the fulltime whistle to arrive as soon as possible but there was more pain in store. Substitute Moses Moli-Kalontang cut in from the left and forced a close-range shot through the hands of Samuelu in the 78th minute before Chabot helped himself to his second, and Vanuatu’s seventh, of the afternoon just seconds later.Vanuatu coach Moise Poida admits his side were expected to win but was nonetheless delighted with the manner of the performance.“American Samoa are not of the same standard as Fiji or Papua New Guinea so I would prefer my boys to play them first and feel their way into the competition,” Poida says.“The team has been together for two years so they have been given the chance to bond and get used to each other’s games. There is a good feeling within the squad at the moment.”The man in charge has a telented crop of youngsters at his disposal and has set them a goal of at least making the semi-finals.“We want to go through from the group and then we will see what happens after that,” he says.American Samoa opposite Rupeni Luvu struggled to take any positives out of the game and, with further group matches to go against Fiji and Papua New Guinea, knows the task doesn’t get any easier for his side.“We made a lot of mistakes and we need to look at what went wrong in those areas,” he says. “We’re going to have to work really hard on getting things right.”

About VFF

Vanuatu has one of the most advanced technical programmes in Oceania, particularly at youth level. The Melanesian nation of around 220,000 inhabitants was chosen as one of six countries globally for a FIFA pilot project whereby players are identified at a young age and selected to train and stay full-time at the national academy. As part of that two-year programme for players aged 15-17, consideration is given to continuing school or vocational education.